Talk:Freedom in the World

Hi there you all! I took Turkey back to where it belongs! From Western Europe to Middle East!

Please don't change it back all you fans of Turkey just because you like it! The country isn't in Europe.

No one changed Turkey to western Europe. It was listed as such, however misguided, by the people who made up the list and as such should continue to be listed as western Europe.--Thomas.macmillan 15:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: Oh, now i understand. Ok. For a moment I thought, that wikipedians themselves are messing around with Turkey, but ok. I'll fix it myself. Sorry.

Thailand

Hi. Mysteriously, Thailand with PR 2 and CL at 3, was marked as "Partly Free", yet India and Indonedia, with the same numbers were listed as "Free". According to Freedom House, Thailand is listed as "Free". I have changed Thailand's listing on the page to reflect this more accurately. I did not change the map, because it is from 2005, as the filename reflects. Should a new map for the 2006 data be made?

A correction - Thailand was rated PR 3, CL 3, "Partly Free" in the survey and the map is correct. --Acntx 19:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What Survey? The link to the PDF file leads to a 404, so this claim cannot be found. At the FreedomHouse website, I searched through all years on their "Map of freedom" and Thailand has never been listed as "Partly Free". Can you can show me a valid link to the survey that lists it as such? If not, it needs to reflect what is actaully on the FreedomHouse site.

I updated the PDF file link. On the first page of the essay, it notes that Thailand was downgraded from "Free" to "Partly Free" in the 2006 survey. At this link [1], on Page 11, Thailand's declining political rights score is confirmed. Freedom House does not post the detailed country-by-country summaries from its most recent survey until late in the following year and this information is not yet available for 2006. --Acntx 20:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification. And thanks to Thaksin For everything else :-/

Russia

Why is russia not even considerd partly free?

The article is somewhat misleading, apparently Freedom House is a neo-conservative organization. Nothing Russia or Cuba can do will put them on good terms with neo-conservatives. Basically, it's more useful as a measurement of agreement with neo-conservative politics than actual freedom. I'm not really convinced that this is a balanced study at all, why is America given top marks even after passing things like the Patriot Act and the alleged voting fraud of the 2004 elections? Oh yeah, FREEDOM!!!! Does this really belong on Wikipedia? Too POV. ≈Superbeatles™ 01:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it does belong on Wikipedia, even if you or I disagree with it. The organization may be biased, but conservatives would argue that Amnesty International is biased, or CNN, or BBC. These rankings are cited all over Wikipedia. Besides, no one really should edit the rankings, considering its an established list--Thomas.macmillan 13:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind having this on wikipedia as long as there are bias warnings all over it. We should also look into getting some other sources that measure similar statistics. I don't claim to be an expert, but in my estimation totalitarian, religious states such as Israel should be considered partly free, along with nations in which certain members of the population don't feel safe due to allegations of election fraud. These might include, America, Briton, and France (Russia is already condidered not free, otherwise it would be on that list). Due to the extensive welfare, and healthcare at first world levels cuba should be partly free, there's no democracy but the system has freed people from extreme poverty.-Oranged

Regarding Why Russia is considered unfree, see this: [2]Ultramarine 09:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]